Leaked docs show Chinese firm hacked foreign govts

A Chinese tech security firm was able to breach foreign governments, infiltrate social media accounts and hack personal computers, a massive data leak analysed by experts this week revealed.

The trove of documents from I-Soon, a private company that competed for Chinese government contracts, shows that its hackers compromised more than a dozen governments, according to cybersecurity firms SentinelLabs and Malwarebytes.

I-Soon also breached "democracy organisations" in China's semi-autonomous city of Hong Kong, universities and the Nato military alliance, SentinelLabs researchers wrote in a blog post on Wednesday.

The leaked data was posted last week on the online software repository GitHub by an unknown individual.

"The leak provides some of the most concrete details seen publicly to date, revealing the maturing nature of China's cyber espionage ecosystem," SentinelLabs analysts said.